Another finished project! This dress is part of our search for an excellent beginner-level shirt to offer as a class as the shop. I think we’ve found it, chickadees!
Hello Friday! At least, recent Friday… While I did get another muslin made of Simplicity 2601, I wasn’t happy with the results – somehow removing two inches of ease from what SEEMED like five inches too much yielded a snug midriff band. And while I may claim to be as snug as a bug in a rug, I prefer that my clothing allows me to do things like, oh, you know… sit. So instead of another post chock-full of unflattering photos of me dressed in my wedding table linen, I will provide odds and ends of photos and updates… starting with…
The Colette spring palette challenge. I decided to join in and spent time playing with photoshop today. I wasn’t going to do it, since I already am sewing so much, but I thought it’d be good for me to do something that will (hopefully) force me to sew things that work well together.
I actually started with a real inspiration board this time – you know, instead of having a pile of patterns I wanted to sew and forcing them into a ‘collection’, I thought about what vibe I’d like for spring and went and found some pics on the googles. I’ve always loved that Rossetti (second one in from the left on the top - for some reason I always think it is called beatrix potter, but that can’t be right…) so I started with that and filled in with more redheads and ridiculous Vogue spreads that had to have been art directed by that wild-haired Grace-forgot-her-last name that stole the show in the Vogue documentary. I was on something of a readhead binge this morning. In ANY case, my actual challenge items are the five on the right (I’m sure you can click to see larger.) Two blouses, one upcycled sweater (i.e. I’m plotting on finding something at a thrift shop and doing something to it to make it all me) and two skirts. The four projects on the left aren’t really challenge projects – there’s the February and March dresses of Year of the Dress. I’ll find fabric in my palette for those. There’s a raincoat that I’m making as a sample/class prep for the shop, and then there’s my super-wish-list project – I light wool coat in an easter egg color. I have to admit to being a bit obsessed with the book Sew Serendipity – this is the ‘classic jacket’ from that book.
OK. I looked it up – the painting is called Beata Beatrix. Also, feel free to make fun of my child-like sketches I did IN photoshop – I mostly traced over other pictures, I was just being anal and weird. As usual!
Oh – and the name, Persephone. The painting all the way to the left – the lady in blue – is called Persephone. I thought it must be fate when I reflected back on my 20’s filled years of reading books on mythology and the dark arts (ha ha, Harry Potter) and remembered that Persephone often represents spring. How apropos!
Hello kittens! I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this… but a week or two ago I bought a lovely (funky? kindergarten child-like?) piece of green 21-wale corduroy with cherries printed all over it. I plan to make it into another hybrid Jenny. So of course I need a shirt to go with this skirt, which, lets face it, will probably be a fall 2011 garment for me, knowing my sewing speed. Nevertheless, I utilized my normal unproductive shopping technique of envisioning what fabric I wanted for the shirt, then driving to every fabric store in the metro area to find it. Turns out, red gingham silk charmeuse does not exist. But! I did find some mystery rayon at our local scary fabric warehouse of suitable red checkiness to be worn with a cherry-cord skirt! Wow!
So. The pattern. I really, REALLY want to get makin’ my Pendrell which has been nicely cut up and waiting for the wax paper treatment for a few weeks! And as much as I love the pattern, AND think it would be adorable in mystery-rayon-with-red-checks, I wanted a shirt with a little more structure. Enter Simplicity 2601, which has been stewing, cut but unloved, in its envelope since July. I actually cut this pattern while I was on my honeymoon. Yes, chickadees, I brought patterns to cut while I was on my honeymoon. That’s how I roll. In my defense, Mr. Bug ran a MARATHON during our honeymoon! Here’s a line drawing of the version I’m doing. I’m telling you, I have never seen a midriff band that I didn’t love.
I am the master of headline writing, don’t you think?? So here’s the deal. I recently finished (sort of) my long-neglected Beignet. This (as yet unpictured) Beignet is made of purple wool and has yellow buttons. That may change, the buttons are causing me angst. To ease the angst and hopefully make the buttons look better, I thought that making a nice new Sencha from my giant stash of voile was the correct next step (click here to see my first Sencha, made of a cotton knit!) I mean, the first step to fixing crooked buttons is obviously making a coordinating blouse, right?
I went with view 1 – the basic neckline. The results were unfortunate. High necklines are not my friend. Not unless I’m going for the droopy boob look and/or the slightly choked vibe. I found myself in the odd position of having to fix the neckline of my Sencha in order to get the buttons on my Beignet to look good. Sewing is such a strange hobby, isn’t it? I was inspired by my Crepe wrap dress, which has similar sleeves to the Sencha – cut as part of the bodice. I used a nice piece of pink chalk to draw a sweetheart neckline right onto the Sencha! And look! It worked! Gosh, I look happy, don’t I?
OK. Perhaps a bit harsh, but I started work on the Colette Negroni today (I know, I know… first I jumped the gun on the Crepe sewalong, and now on Peter’s shirt sewalong…) and I am completely in awe of whomever thought up the crazy way of attaching the yolk. Also, symmetrical pockets and topstitching seem to be basic torture methods… Here’s what I’ve got after an afternoon and evening of intermittent sewing (what I’ve got, shirt-wise. I skipped the photo session taking pictures of all the steam burns on my hands. But I’ve got those too, my little chickadees…)
Morning kittens! I went and made another dress again. I seem to be doing dresses in two’s… here it is! My first border print!
I can’t resist puns. Today’s post is ANOTHER McCalls dress. As I said yesterday, I was so inspired by Stitchywitch’s wrap version that I made my own wrap version today. As a special bonus, I’ll also unveil the shirt version…
I have been a busy, buzzing bee the last few days! Yesterday I made my crazy Japanese elastic band skirt as well as my unveiled-today McCall’s 5974. Today I made a shirt version of the McCall’s dress and a turtleneck from Kwik Sew 3003. We’ll get to the shirts tomorrow. Today I’m all about the McCalls dress – the January edition of my year of the dress plot. I chose this dress after seeing it on Andrea’s blog, The New Vintage Wardrobe. And THEN, while getting myself together to write this post, I saw that Stitchywitch recently did a lovely wrap version that she just blogged about! Now I must immediately re-do the dress in the wrap version… but first, let’s look at some photos.
I had a busy day today, nearly finishing McCalls 5974 (only the neckline to finish!) and completely finishing my altered version of Kwik Sew 3003, a basic skirt, cut on the bias with an elastic waist. For anyone who reads my blog semi-regularly, you might be struck over the oddness of me making a bias-cut, elastic waistband skirt. This skirt is one of our beginning classes that I’m teaching next month, so I thought it’d be good to make it before teaching it! It’s a super easy skirt (ovb!) and the turtleneck pattern that also came in the envelope looks like a nice basic as well. The fun part of the skirt was fulfilling my recent jonesing for a bright, funky explosion of a skirt. With embroidery. And layers. Here’s the only photo I could stand from the photo session.
No sewing updates today! I found all the Parfait comments interesting – looks like I wasn’t the only one who questioned the dress!
Tonight was my first ‘official’ night of teaching a class at the shop where I work – Pajama bottoms! It was great fun and I’m looking forward to teaching more classes. The way it’s structured, I’ll be teaching classes already on the schedule as well as putting together some new classes. The all-Snug-Bug classes will start in February, first up will be a basic dress class (guess which favorite design we’ll be teaching?) and a full bust adjustment/alterations and tissue fitting workshop. We’re also starting a monthly pincushion workshop (that’ll veer into other soft squishy things, buttonhole stitching and felt obsession) that I’m going to be the ringleader of! Of which I’ll be the ringleader? Silly prepositional phrases! Here’s the sewing studio part of the shop – I love how this is just part of the shop, not stuck back in a classroom!!
Candidate for taping to the fridge…
On to other (still shop related) news… we were written up in a local magazine this month and I was tickled pink that my fun pincushion photos were prominently displayed! The reporter called us looking for a quick and easy project to include in her fun things to do pages and I had just finished my pincushion-making spree so that was at the top of our minds (is that a phrase of common usage, or did I just make it up?) I sent the reporter a few ideas, a fact sheet for pincushions and the photos – here’s a scan of the article! Fun! Also, I’m referred to as an “in-store expert” tee hee. (sorry it’s so hard to read!)
Oooooo… larkspur….
I suppose it was inevitable, working in an actual fabric shop, that I’d end up getting all giddy about new fabrics… we got some new Alexander Henry fabric (larkspur, for anyone interested) and I’m all gaga in love with it. There’s an extremely funky border print of which I already obtained three yards that will be made into a dress of some sort. Since it’s quilt-like cotton, I’m not sure about a full circle skirt (plus, I want to use the border on the BOTTOM of the skirt.) I’m considering making a Parfait from this fabric – I also got a yard of lovely coordinating turquoise voile for the lining of bodices and other fun things. Here’s a snapshot of the fabric, the colors are a little off. So funky!
The other fabric from the line that I have my eye on is this oh-so-unfortunately named Bird (or something) in soft nude (that’s the unfortunate part!) I love the colors and the fun graphic print! There’s a coordinating dusty pink print in the line that would make a lovely sash for a birdie Crepe!
Year of the dress update
Ah! But it is time to focus! I’ve cut the pattern for my year-of-the-dress dress – McCalls 5974. We had a bunch of good options for a knit dress at the shop – cool stretchy prints in unidentified man-made material – and it was on sale for $3.99 a yard! I’m still mulling over how much of an FBA to do (I hate baggy knits) and how to smooth out what promises to be maternity looking pleats right over the tummy area (Andrea! If you’re reading this I could use a consult! Email me!) I hope to get it cut out sometime in the next week and it’ll be a snap to sew, errrr… serge up!
And with that, I’ll sign off. More work in the morning – a first thing sewing lesson teaching a very funny, clever ten year old girl how to sew a pillowcase!
Not really a heap. Just going to for the shock factor. Good news for Snug Bug readers… I treated myself to a tripod that works… although I think my previous hair clip tripod was ingenious. For whatever reason (akin, I’m sure, to the phenomena that makes computers work when tech support shows up) a lot of the lighting and focus problems that I was having before went away with the new tripod! I still took most of the photos in bad inside light, onaccounta the sun setting at 2:30 p.m. or thereabouts. Hopefully, my photos will be less frightening over the coming months… But enough about that, here’s my finished Parfait. Shockingly, I like the dress and the fabric. More on that (and pictures!) after the jump.
Hey everyone – just in case you missed it (or forgot) Blue Gardenia is having their end-of-year sale! Buy 3 or more items and get 33% off! Here’s my vote… join me in a year of dresses, stock up on patterns at Blue Gardenia! Sale prices through midnight PST Thursday, January 6, 2011 – Payment via credit card or PayPal.
Here’s this one – size 44 bust!
Or this one – 45 inch bust and check out that lovely keyhole detail!
OK, this one’s a 36 inch bust, but grading is easy enough, right? And if one pattern screams three wheeled bicycle, this one does. Am I right?
Go forth and order! Return and report. That is all.
OK, so I’m a little behind the times… I wanted to put off crowing about my Christmas presents from Mr. Bug until I had time for a test drive, which I finally got to today. So! Merry Christmas to me! I got TWO awesome things from santa, but only one was sewing related, so we’ll start with that. Everyone, may I introduce my new friend, Singer Fashion Mate 237??
Sorry folks. I agree. Dresses are more interesting than bags. But the only dress sewing I’ve done this week is the cutting out of Parfait, a supremely unsatisfying task. I hate cutting. I use a rotary cutter and mat, which makes it slightly easier, but I still hate it. And it doesn’t make for blog photos (unless you’re in to looking at piles of scraps…) So I’m going with a recent project. My super-utilitarian messenger-slash-tote bag. Here’s me modeling it in a Willy Wonka-esque manner.
A kick off for 2011. I’m a big fan of resolutions, plots and other such advanced planning methods that rarely lead to success. Or, er, follow-through. Half the fun is the plotting. And January 1st begs for such plans. So here’s mine…
First… the non-sewing related plot. I’m going to try my hand at a 365 project… you know, taking a picture a day for a whole year? I thought of just snapping the shots of the boy and the hound and getting the pictures bound next Christmas as a gift. I also considered setting up a flickr pool for the project, but what with rumors that Yahoo is closing down the site and general unattractiveness of Flickr (although I do love the functionality) I finally decided to set up a Wordpress blog because there are great photo-blog themes for just this sort of project! I’ll have one picture a day with which to apply as many Photoshop actions as my little heart desires. So if any of y’all are interested in a probably-only-interesting-to-Mr.-Bug-and-I-endeavor, tune in to www.snugbug365.wordpress.com for a daily fix.
On to sewing. I’m fighting off a hankering for Spring, spring dresses, lightweight cotton, nice, shiny blindingly white legs not in need of tights or leggings. I’ve been pawing through current patterns and scrolling through the websites of the Big 4 obsessively. I finally decided to make 2011 a year of dresses. Twelve dresses, to be exact. Well, twelve year-of-the-dress dresses. I suspect there might be some offshoots. Side projects. Second passes. Here’s what I’ve come up with – nine dresses, enough to keep me busy with a few spots left for anything interesting that comes up and the inevitable sheath-dress-interest that fall will bring. Here’s the rundown so far. Pictures first, then after the jump a few comments (click on the photo to see the source!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
